A Guest Fighter is a character that doesn't belong in the setting who just shows up in a Video Game, especially a Fighting Game, much like a Special Guest on a TV show. It seems like if a fighting game hasn't had a full-blown Crossover, it has at least had a Guest Fighter or two.

In nearly all cases, those characters are Unexpected Characters, so Guest Fighter can be considered a subtrope of that.

Examples:

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Fighting Games

The earliest known fighting game with a guest fighter would have to be the first Fighter's History game by Data East, which its final boss is Karnov from the arcade game of the same name, who also appeared in later titles in the series (and also appeared as an enemy in Bad Dudes and Trio the Punch). However, he wasn't playable until the arcade game was ported to the SNES with a cheat code to play as him.

In Fighter's History Dynamite (known in Europe as Karnov's Revenge), another guest fighter appears as a Bonus Boss, which was the Ox from Data East's 1984 Karate Champ.

In the Japan-exclusive Super Famicom title in the series, Fighter's History: Mizoguchi Kiki Ippatsu!!, the final boss this time is another guest fighter, Chelnov, from the run 'n' gun arcade game Atomic Runner.

Makoto Mizoguchi from this series made two appearances as a guest fighter: the first was in Suiko Enbu: Fuu'un Saiki (with Liu Yungmie), while the second was in KOF: Maximum Impact Regulation A.

Although both the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting franchises take place in the same universe, Ryo Sakazaki from the Art of Fighting series appearing in Fatal Fury Special (an update of Fatal Fury 2) as the secret final boss counts.

Also, following the story from this chronology, Ryo takes the mantle of Mr. Karate appearing in his 30s and changing his look. This older version of Ryo appears as secret character in the 3D reboot of first Fatal Fury (FF: Wild Ambition), representing Karate in Buriki One (the only known character in a game full of Original Generation), as unlockable character in KOF: Maximum Impact 2 with a similar mask than his father Takuma (apart of using Buriki One look for Ryo's Another outfit) and Neo Geo Battle Coliseum representing Buriki One instead Art of Fighting.

Geese Howard from Fatal Fury appears as a secret final boss in Art of Fighting 2, though with a different appearance, due to Art of Fighting being placed chronogically before Fatal Fury, thus making the Geese in AOF younger.

Truly a remarkable example because from one simple guest appearance, the entire The King of Fighters franchise was given birth (which is like "Guest Fighter: The Game", at least in its original design, as not only did characters from Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting appear on the roster but so too did non-fighting game characters from games such as Psycho Soldier and Ikari Warriors). KoF in itself has had a few guest fighters (particularly in XI where characters from fighting games like Savage Reign and Buriki One got to join the cast). And while it features characters from multiple universes, KOF '94 can be considered the earliest cross-over fighting game.

Leaving aside the games that explicitly fold into it, The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2 has fun with this trope. Hanzo Hattori and Fio both show up... and are quite confused (Hanzo wonders what happened to ninjitsu when he meets Mai, and Fio mistakes Ralf and Clark for Marco and Tarma, respectively). Its update, Regulation A, also has Mizoguchi, though he's notably the first and only non-SNK character to join the KOF cast.

Clark and Ralf make appearances in Metal Slug 6 and 7, as well as one or two of their signature moves. Leona is an add-on character in Metal Slug XX, the PSP re-release of Metal Slug 7. Additionally, Metal Slug Defense has all 3 of them, plus Kyo, Iori, Benimaru, Goro Daimon, Mature, and Vice, as purchasable units.

The King of Fighters 2000 has Assist Characters known as strikers to help you out. Some og them are from other SNK games, such as Rocky from Robo Army, Duke Edwards from Burning Fight, and Neo & Geo from Quiz Dai Sousa-sen. (The first two are from Beat 'Em Ups, but Neo & Geo are from, oddly enough, a quiz game.)

The King of Fighters XIV has a subversion: The Another World Team is a team seemingly loaded with this trope. Led by Nakoruru, its members include two heroines from Pachislot series: Mui Mui and Love Heart. The subversion is that there is a high chance that they're not being temporary guests: the Big Bad of the game has the power to yank beings from another timeline/dimension into the current dimension, possibly forcing the team to take part in canon as opposed of being 'bonus'.

And predating this game and going straight with the trope, Nakoruru first appeared in the Game Boy version of KOF '95.

Gon in the console port of Tekken 3. Almost two decades later, Akuma from Street Fighter crashes Tekken 7: Fated Retribution on a mission to hunt down Heihachi Mishima and Kazuya Mishima.

Strangely enough, Akuma appears in Tekken 7's Story Mode going after Heihachi and Kazuya as part of a debt he owes to Heihachi's late wife after she saved his life, implying that he may actually be part of Tekken canon now.

The first Season Pass DLC character for the console version of Tekken 7 is Fatal Fury's Big Bad Geese Howard, marking the first time an SNK character will clash in a fighting game with fighters from Namco Bandai's character library (previously Mai Shiranui and Emile "Lili" de Rochefort came together in the crossover game Queen's Gate: Spiral Chaos).

And indirectly, this is the first time Akuma and Geese are in the same game in 16 years.

The Guest Character train keeps going, with Noctis from Final Fantasy XV joining the roster.

Link, Heihachi and Spawn in Soulcalibur II. The catch is that each of these three are exclusive to a single console (GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox, respectively). The HD remake for the Xbox Live Arcade and PSN brings only Heihachi and Spawn back (not Link for obvious reasons), but now both are available across both platforms.

Likewise, Soul Calibur V has a fighting style based on Devil Jin. Tekken's producer, Katsuhito Harada, appears as a bonus character in Quick Battle mode using this style. In the game, he's known under his Twitter handle Harada_TEKKEN, and wears an outfit resembling Heihachi's gi.

While not Guest Fighters in the same sense as the others, there are also a number of characters who were created for the series by well known artists. In this sense, they count as well.

Necrid was designed by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane for Soulcalibur II, the game which McFarlane also made a toy line for (the making of which was conditional on Necrid's inclusion). He was available on all three console versions.

Angol Fear was created by Sgt. Frog creator Mine Yoshizaki. She is a cousin to Angol Mois from that series and made a one-off appearance in chapter 148 of the manga after her debut, making her a genuine retroactive guest.

All these guest fighters have background stories and plots that sufficiently explain why they are in the series. However, they are never actually referenced again or even hinted about having existed at any point, and have zero impact within the story. The 5 created characters for IV, including Angol Fear, are an exception as they are actually mentioned as part of the story, with Ashlotte having the strongest connection due to her part in the story for V's new Astaroth.

On another note, Ubisoft's Word of God on Ezio's presence is that it is easily explained through the Animus, the decidedly time-spanning but not universe-spanning Framing Device of the Assassin's Creed universe. Though at one point the Soulcalibur community manager noted the fuzziness of Ezio's timeline during the events of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (the incarnation used in V), suggested that it was actually time/dimensional travel instead of Soul Calibur V itself being a video game inside the Animus. The latter seems to be backed up by Ezio's official profile, which has him retrieving an item from the Templars that seems to briefly transport him to 1607, this leaving erratic readings in the Animus.

On top of all that, the very first game subverts this trope with the hidden character Han Myong. He actually has a name in-game, and can be unlocked, but the game's MC only ever refers to him as "Guest Fighter" for some reason, even though this was the first time such a character ever existed.

In 2016, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round received Naotora Ii from Samurai Warriors and, later in the year, Mai Shiranui from The King of Fighters/Fatal Fury (quite fittinglynote Let's be honest here, She was pretty much a Dead or Alive character before there was a Dead or Alive).

The Japanese version of Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter had Norimaro, an original character created by Japanese comedian Noritake Kinashi. He carried around a little satchel full of props as he fought. His super move was to fling every prop in the bag in a giant shotgun-blast of random objects. When he won, he'd pull out a little camera, hold it at arm's length, turn it around, and snap a picture of himself. He was removed from the US version, although data for him still exists in the game.

Akuma also appeared in the console version of Cyberbots as a mecha under the name "Zero Akuma". This characters was very likely inspired by Cyber Akuma, the final boss in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter.

And in an example of Guest Stage, Penguin Village is an unlockable stage.

The Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 had an alternate costume for Frieza, as his son Kuriza from Akira Toriyama's self-parody manga Neko Majin Z. Neko Majin himself appears as a guest assistant character in the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 2 for the Nintendo DS.

While not a playable character, Donkey Kong is a not-so-secret challenger in the Wii Punch-Out!! title. He would only appear during the last phase of Career Mode: Mac's Last Stand. Win or lose, once you met him, you could fight him any time in Exhibition Mode. But because all opponents at this point are random, you ran the risk of him being Permanently Missable if you lost the Last Stand before fighting him.

For the GameCube port of EA's Fight Night Round 2, you can play as Little Mac in his SNES appearance.

Earthworm Jim has appeared as a guest fighter in ClayFighter 63⅓ and the PC edition of Battle Arena Toshinden. In the former, he has his own moveset and even his own story and stage, but in the latter, he is just a bonus skin for Rungo Iron.

In Mortal Kombat X, fellow horror icon Jason Voorhees appears as a DLC character. His announcement date was also fitting — he was announced on a Friday the 13th. A second guest character in the form of Predator also comes over as DLC.

Two more guest fighters join Mortal Kombat X through its "Kombat Pack 2": Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a Xenomorphnote with Tarkatan DNA, courtesy of Baraka from Alien.

Additionally, Jax has a DLC "Carl Weathers" costume based on his appearance as Dillon, Dutch's jerkass teammate from Predator.

Interestingly, the Arcade version has some unused Guest Fighters that were Dummied Out in the final release, that were likely added as a joke and not meant to be in the full game: Sonic, Tails and Takashi Iizuka (director of Sonic Team). However, they are still playable thanks to emulation hacking. Sourcelinks. Sonic being there was the result of a bored programmer, and Yuji Naka saw it and loved the idea, thus Sonic the Fighters was born.

Sonic the Fighters originally had Honey the Cat, an original character based on the same character from Fighting Vipers. She was Dummied Out in the original Arcade version of the game and the Sonic Gems Collection re-release, but she's now available for play in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 digital re-release.

To an extent, Poison counts as this. She was from the Final Fight video game series, and while she did make an appearance with Hugo in Street Fighter III, she wasn't playable. Street Fighter X Tekken is the first time she's playable in a Street Fighter game.

Arm Wrestling (a Punch-Out!! spinoff) involves this; the third round is against Mask X. But, during the round, pull off the mask and looky here, it's Bald Bull from Punch-Out!! The text also says, "Wow!!! Bald Bull!!!"

Divekick has Johnny Gat of the Saints Row series as one of the new characters in the "Addition Edition". Shaundi also appears as an assist character in one of Gat's moves. The fencer from Nidhogg also arrived in a later update.

In the PSP rerelease of Street Fighter Alpha 3, Capcom Fighting Evolution's Ingrid was a playable character. Interestingly, Capcom now retroactively considers her a Street Fighter character with series producer Yoshinori Ono even considering her a possibility as DLC for Street Fighter V. Her appearance in Project X Zone 2 even lists her origin as Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX despite that obviously not being her first game.

The Super Puzzle Fighter and Super Gem Fighter featured Super-Deformed versions of Street Fighter and Darkstalkers characters. However, both games had one character that wasn't from either series. Puzzle Fighter had Devilotte from the Giant Mech Fighting Game Cyberbots appear as a secret character, while Gem fighter had Tessa from Red Earth.

The fighting game Phantom Breaker has Kurisu Makise and Rimi Sakihata as playable characters. Later in the cutesy retro-styled spin-off Beat 'em UpPhantom Breaker: Battle Grounds, Kurisu returns as a playable character via DLC; later in November 17th, 2016, a second DLC added Frau Kojiro as a playable character, which can be selected in all modes.

Under certain conditions, Pocket Rumble allows you to fight against different indie characters as bosses: Kick, Fencer, Dust, The Kid, Candyman, Joy, Wyrn, and Ace. Geiger from Fantasy Strike was a stretch goal DLC character on the game's Kickstarter, but the goal wasn't reached.

Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The latter was highly demanded by fans who wanted to see him in a fighting game with Mario (which was why he was added in the game), and the game's website refers to both by the trope name. Solid Snake is a unique case as Hideo Kojima originally asked for Snake to be added to Super Smash Bros. Melee. That game was too close to being done, so the developers rainchecked him till Brawl.

In Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, 3rd party enemies also appear in Smash Run. Eggrobo, and Mettaur represent the Sonic and Mega Man series, but the Pac-Man universe has no representation in this mode. Instead, Pooka and Bacura represent Namco's universe.

Smash 4 also has some trophies of characters who are not owned by Nintendo. The list includes CommanderVideo from BIT.TRIP, and Rayman, Globox, and Barbara from Rayman.

The promotional sample disk version of NiGHTS into Dreams..., Christmas NiGHTS, had a mode where you could play through Spring Valley as Sonic. Dr. Eggman is also a boss in this version of the game, though he's just a reskinned version of the boss Puffy.

In May 2018, Fortnite had the 'Infinity Gauntlet Limited Time Mashup'. The Infinity Gauntlet would spawn on the map randomly and allow the player to play as Comic Book/Thanos to completely destroy their rivals.

Dating Sim

While they're not technically fighters due to the game being a Dating Sim, Namco High includes three characters from Homestuck (Jane Crocker, Terezi Pyrope, and Davesprite) due to the author being a major part of the development. All three are referred to as "weird exchange students" in the character info.

Bayonetta 2 has special costumes that replace the original sound effects.

The Mushroom Kingdom Princess and Sarasaland Princess costumes replace Halos with Gold Coins, and Bayonetta can summon Bowser instead of Madama Butterfly to attack when using Wicked Weaves. She'll even have a cute Mario or Luigi plush doll attached to her hip. Bayonetta can also use the Chain Chomp as a weapon, while donning a Mario Costume.

The Hero of Hyrule costume replaces Halos with Rupees and the sounds effects with SFX from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Hideki Kamiya's favorite Legend of Zelda game. The Shuraba will be replaced with the Master Sword, and can allow her to damage flaming enemies without taking damage. The Hylian Shield on her wrist will also allow her to parry attacks.

The Galactic Bounty Hunter costume will have Bayonetta use the Arm Cannon for gun attacks. When she uses Panther Within, she uses Samus's Morph Ball mode, and double jumping makes her use the Screw Attack.

Finally, the Star Mercenary gives off Star Fox 64 sound effects, and replaces Love is Blue with mini Arwings that shoot lasers. If you wear this costume in Chapter 16: Sovereign Power, you'll control an Arwing instead of a jet, and can fire Smart Bombs.

Donkey Kong and Bowser are playable in the Wii U version of Skylanders: SuperChargers and the Wii and Nintendo 3DS-exclusive spin-off Skylanders: SuperChargers Racing. Their figures function as Skylander figures in the games and can also double as amiibo.

Skylanders: Imaginators introduces the ability to play as Crash Bandicoot and Dr. Neo Cortex. Unlike Donkey Kong and Bowser, their figures are compatible with all versions of the game.

Meat Boy is a recurring character in the BIT.TRIP series, appearing as a background character in RUNNER,Runner2, and FLUX, and as a powerup in FATE.

In the Wii U Scribblenauts Unlimited you could summon characters and items from the Mario and Zelda series. They have their own voices and have special reactions to certain items. (For example, if you summon a go-kart, Toad will run towards it and hop on!)

Nicalis Super Gem Fighter clone Crystal Crisis featured characters from non-Niclais works such as Astro Boy, Black Jack, President Thompson and a Zombie from 8bits Fanatics' The Tempura of the Dead, Akuji from Akuji the Demon, and, perhaps most unexpected, Johnny Turbo, the mascot for the Turbo Duo.

In the Excite series, Boulder from Excite Truck was a guest racer in Excitebots.

The fan-favorite Hornet car re-appears in Daytona USA 2, alongside USA 2's new cars. It's identical to the way it preformed in the first game: same build, same speed, same camera angles, and it can pull off 4-1-4 shifting!

Hornet is also available as DLC for the PlayStation Vita version of Ridge Racer, '94 blocky look and all.

Diddy Kong Racing's case is actually a subversion. Its the first time Banjo or Conker made an appearance in a video game. note DKR was released in 1997, Banjo-Kazooie was released in 1998, and Conker's Pocket Tales was released in 1999. However they were owned by Rare, who was later bought by Microsoft. Banjo and Conker did not appear in the Updated Re-release Diddy Kong Racing DS. On the other hand, Tiptup did. He also made his first appearance in Diddy Kong Racing, but became a minor character in the Banjo series. His status as a minor character is probably the reason he stayed in the roster.

The Sonic the Hedgehog spinoff series Sonic Riders had guest characters in the first two games. NiGHTS was in both games, along with Ulala and Aiai in Riders and Amigo and Billy Hatcher in Zero Gravity. An Extreme Gear based on Crazy Taxi also appeared in both games.

Cloud is a secret character in Final Fantasy Tactics. Aerith makes a cameo appearance, but isn't playable. The PSP version adds Balthier and Luso, who are technically from the same universe as Tactics, but from a different time period.

Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII had made an appearance in Final Fantasy XIV through random events and she would help players fight Final Fantasy XIII themed monsters. Completing the event would earn players gear and hairstyles based on Lightning's game.

In Digimon World Re:Digitize, you can battle against Lili and Sebastian from Tekken. Her Digimon is a slug-like Numemon named Catherine, who's evolution line is a total Ugly Duckling story. It transforms from a slug, to a literal piece of crap, to a giant teddy bear, until it finally evolves into Lilithmon. Sebastian on the other hand has a Seraphimon, who frequently butts heads with Catherine when she's fully evolved. And then there's the fact that you can fight Lili when she's in a pink Monzaemon costume...

One of FNAF World's secret bosses is none other than "Chipper's Revenge", an evil robot version of the protagonist of Scott Cawthon's Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. series. These kid-friendly games were heavily criticized, and that criticism influenced Cawthon to create Five Nights at Freddy's. Chipper's lines after defeating him references this.

Chipper's Revenge: "My world was lush and beautiful, full of strange and colorful creatures! But no, that wasn't enough for you. You wanted to be scared. You wanted to feel dread. And what happened to me? What happened to us? Obscurity..."

A later update to the game also added Coffee from The Desolate Hope as a secret party member.

Monster Hunter: World included armor sets of Ryu and Sakura as DLC. They change the your character appearance and voice to match that of the duo, and they can even use the Hadoken and Shoryuken in battle.

In Blue Wish Resurrection Plus, Eden's Edge/Eve is available for play. In the creator, X.X's next game, Eden's Aegis, Eve and Ridmie from Eden's Edge and Green Wind respectively are available for play if certain conditions are met.

In all the Raiden Fighters games, the ship roster includes several guest fighters, including the player ships from Raiden II (Homing Lasers included) and Viper Phase 1 and Miclus, Seibu Kaihatsu's infrequently-seen mascot character.

Tyrian 2000 has the Pretzel Pete Truck from the unreleased game Pretzel Pete as a secret ship used in Super Arcade Mode.

DariusBurst: Chronicle Saviours adds several ships from other shmup titles as DLC:

The Gamecube version of NBA Street 3 has Mario, Luigi and Peach as playable characters to make up for the console's lack of online play. Plus, all versions of the game have the Beastie Boys as a secret team.

SSX On Tour also had the trio (Cube only, obviously.)

SSX 3 also had Stretch, one of the characters from NBA Street, as a secret character, as well as all the characters from the previous games.

And in that same game, the secret character Churchill debuted as a Quake III: Arenacustom skin. Yes, it's true!

Stretch's inclusion in SSX 3 mirrors SSX riders Zoe and Moby's status as unlockable characters in the original NBA Street, along with Tracey from Sled Storm. Also in that game? R&B group 3LW.

Similarly, Mario Hoops 3-on-3 featured a White Mage, Black Mage, Ninja, Moogle, and Cactuar from Final Fantasy, due to Square Enix being the developer. Mario Sports Mix featured the same guest characters, plus Slime from Dragon Quest, and added Behemoth as a boss.

NBA Jam featured anyone and everyone from the designers to President Bill Clinton as hidden characters.

Of particular note is that the NBA asked Midway to remove Raiden, Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Reptile of Mortal Kombat fame from later revisions of NBA Jam Tournament Edition because they were not at ease with MK being Rated M for Money. You read that right.

Then again, a notable guest in Electronic Arts' installment is Isaac Clarke from Dead Space. Apparently, either NBA has issues with characters from fighting games and yet has no problem featuring a character who gets graphically chopped up by necromorphs or the times have changed on the subject of video game violence since the Mortal Kombat controversy.

They seemed to change their minds on this early, as Raiden and Shinnok are playable in NFL Blitz. Scorpion and Sub-Zero also made appearances in MLB Sluggers, but that was made by a different company.

Virtua Striker 3 and 2002 has a Sonic team consisting of the hedgehog and his friends. Yuji Naka is also an announcer and coach of Sonicís team.

NHL 12 features an All-Legend Team, made up of NHL greats like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Gordie Howe, Ray Bourque, among others. You can even put them on your favourite teams, presenting interesting situations all around.

Back in THQ's days, they put Shaquille O'Neal in as a fighter in UFC Undisputed 2010. We must assume his fighting style was listed as Shaq Fu.

Pro Baseball Famista 2011 for the Nintendo 3DS includes various Namco characters as guest players, including Siegfried from the Soul Series, Nina and Heihachi from Tekken, Haruka, Miki, and Chihaya from The Idolmaster, the title character of Klonoa, and - perhaps the strangest of all - the XFA-27 fighter jet from Ace Combat.

Stealth-Based Game

Among the original students that wander the school in Yandere Simulator, there's Pippi, the mascot of the rhythm game osu!. She even plays osu! in the game. However, just because she's from another series doesn't mean she's immune to the wrath of the school's local Yandere (i.e. you)...

One mission in Warcraft III is infamous for having a Hydralisk you can add to your forces. The character models for Terran Marines and Zerglings are also available.

Interestingly, Plague Inc, a game about killing humanity with diseases, got its first official Guest Fighter in the form of the Simian Flu from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which was a result of a partnership with 20th Century Fox.

An update to Zombie Army Trilogy added the 8 characters from Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 as playable characters. This was relatively simple to do, as Zombie Army does not have voice acting, so all they had to do was get the license rights then plug the character models into their engine.

Fatal Frame V: Maiden of Black Water has an unlockable side story starring Ayane from Dead or Alive. As expected of a horror game, Ninja Ayane is Brought Down to Normal when her deadly skills prove ineffective against ghosts that are already dead. Fortunately she gains a magical set of tattoos and magical flashlight to help her against the ghosts.

Wrestling Games

Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst is a playable character in both the PS2 WWF Smackdown: Just Bring It! and the Xbox's concurrent WWF RAW. Rumor has it, this was one of the conditions for allowing the developers to use the song "Rollin'", which was The Undertaker's entrance theme at the time, in the game.

The later WWE games feature hidden "legends"; in other words, popular wrestlers from WWE's past.

WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 also features Rob Van Dam, who hadn't been in WWE for a couple of years prior to the game beginning development and, indeed, signed with TNA shortly after its release. He's listed as a "Free Agent", not as a Legend (the only other characters so designated are the Red and Green demonstration models, Paul Bearer, and the Undertaker's druid). Apparently, the dev team were just really big RVD fans and wanted to use him in the game very badly.

A Warhawk from the the game of the same name is the Final Boss in Twisted Metal: Black. Serves also as a Call-Back, as the original Warhawk was developed by the same team that did the first two Twisted Metal games and Black.

While not "characters" per se, Rocket League features a few "guest cars: first is the PS4-exclusive Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal, and DLC later added the DeLorean from Back to the Future. And with the announcement of an Xbox One version, a variation of the Warthog from Halo and the Armadillo from Gears of War join the roster.

In VA 11 Hall A, you can trigger the appearance of three guest characters from Read Only Memories by serving a secret drink to specific characters at certain points of the game.

Non Video-Game Examples

In a non-Video Game example, one episode of Celebrity Deathmatch had Beavis And Butthead fight against each other. While both shows were on MTV, Celebrity Deathmatch focused on parodies of real celebrities fighting to the death, not animated cartoon characters, making their match rather unexpected.

Hayden Moss is known for competing in Big Brother, but he also competed in Survivor Blood vs Water. He got in because his then girlfriend was a former Survivor contestant, and former Survivors competing against loved ones was the main gimmick of the season.

Fellow contestant Gervase Peterson references this in one of his voting confessionals.

This isn't Big Brother, it's Survivor. We do things different here.

In a related example, Big Brother 17 contestants Jackie Ibarra and Jeff Weldon first appeared in The Amazing Race.

Miyamoto Usagi is known for his frequent appearances in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles media. His appearance in the 1987 cartoon (in which he was actually called "Usagi Yojimbo") was a set up for his own cartoon that was never made due to Creative Differences. He's more accurately portrayed in the 2003 cartoon. His world is the setting for a few episodes, characters like Tomoe and Gen appear, and Usagi is as close as a brother to Leonardo.

The Simpsons episode "A Star is Burns" had Jay from The Critic guest star. It's the only episode to not have Matt Groening's name in the opening and closing credits, as he felt that it was a 22-minute advertisement for The Critic.

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